We are in the life raft–
Having walked an unexpected plank.
Fallen. Shattered. Piled close.
Keelhauling seems kinder.
(Barnacles across our backs
Better than this heartbreak.)
We have no oxygen, at any rate.
Months mast-climbing now wasted;
the crow’s nest meaningless.
A formidable, sandless shore
(Still, certainly, with its treasures)
Awaits us now, black-rocked.
We dare not look or think too long.
Decades of gathered ballast
Bilge-hidden for such a day
(Godcan/Godloves/Godhears)
Discharge, trickle, and sustain.
The cannons boom. “Certainly Lethal.”
Foremast, mainmast, mizzenmast:
All are tangled. Torn, destroyed.
And the wind will show no mercy.
135 days of Unknown await.
Surely we will again sleep and breathe and eat.
But the waves are high; our vessel weak.
And the voyage is so long.
cynicalchristianlikeyou 